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Firefighters responded to quite the unusual call this week when a British YouTuber prankster, Jay Swingler, cemented his head inside a microwave oven for a video.
The West Midlands Fire Service reports that five firefighters and a fire engine responded to a call at 1:49 p.m. on Wednesday, December 7th from an ambulance service who needed support at a scene in the garage of a home in Fordhouses, Wolverhampton.
We're seriously unimpressed 😡.
Five of our firefighters were tied up for an hour this afternoon, freeing a YouTube pranker whose head had been 'cemented' inside a microwave oven. Read more: https://t.co/6bZReGuKQX (Photos © West Midlands Fire Service) pic.twitter.com/2ch2UhszeH— West Midlands Fire (@WestMidsFire) December 7, 2017
The crew says the call tied them up for an hour as they worked to free Swingler.
“He and a group of friends had mixed seven bags of Polyfilla which they then poured around his head, which was protected by a plastic bag inside the microwave,” said Shaun Dakin, the officer in charge of the West Midlands Fire Service crew.
“The oven was being used as a mold, and wasn’t plugged in. The mixture quickly set hard and, by the time we were called, they’d already been trying to free him for an hour and a half,” he added.
The friends had managed to feed an air tube into the 22-year-old’s mouth, to help him breathe.
Dakin says taking the microwave apart was tricky because a lot of it was welded, so they had to consult their technical rescue team via video call to get him unstuck.
As funny as it may sound, says Dakin, Swingler could have easily suffocated or otherwise seriously injured.
I cemented my head in a microwave and emergency services came.. (nearly died)https://t.co/Ak6bhvI9fL pic.twitter.com/qvHjyOjYXq
— Jay Swingler (@JayFromTGF) December 7, 2017
“He was very relieved when we removed a large chunk of the Polyfilla with a screwdriver, allowing him to breathe more easily. But we had to be extremely careful with the screwdriver, working so closely to his head,” said Dakin.
“It took us nearly an hour to free him. All of the group involved were very apologetic, but this was clearly a call-out which might have prevented us from helping someone else in genuine, accidental need.”
Swingler did end up posting his video once free.